


Small Things

by Sans_Souci



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Magic, Odin's Parenting, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-11-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 04:38:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1027311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sans_Souci/pseuds/Sans_Souci
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mother and a wayward son. Spoilers for Thor 2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Small Things

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The sterile cage was, despite its finer than average trappings, a sterile cage. The scant furnishings were from his former rooms.

"Was this your idea?" Loki asked, not turning around to face the presence behind him. He knew it was her--clothed in her silk gown and radiating motherly disapproval.

She allowed him his space. And the time required to school his features into impassiveness.

He had to turn around eventually. "I thought you were not supposed to be here."

"Ah, but I am not _here_ ," Frigga said wryly. 

" _Ah_ ,” he mimicked her tone. “Correct to the very letter of Odin's decree, I see.” 

The queen and a loyal wife had to be seen to obey the All-Father’s decree. He had learned about illusions and verbal loopholes from her after all.

As a child, the first magic to have manifested in him had been the ability to vanish or conceal himself from sight. Creating illusions came naturally to him and she had delighted in teaching him how to project images of himself or other creatures. It was just bending light to fool people after all.

Loki realised that he had been approaching his m--Frigga--and halted before her. Her image. She was most likely in her rooms, projecting a simulacrum of her person into his cell. When it came to casting illusions, Frigga was second to none and distance was not an issue in this case.

She noticed the aborted gesture--she always noticed--and smiled wanly. "What can Odin do to me even if he does discover that I've been visiting you? I suspect he knows, but he will close his remaining eye."

"You shouldn't have come." He did not have to worry about Heimdall--shielding himself from him had been one of the first things he had wanted to learn from Frigga. Secrecy came as easily as breathing to those that were well-versed in magic.

"I wanted to." The simple truth. The one thing he had no defence against.

And because he could not drive her away from him the way he had driven Thor away, he could only pretend that he was not the son she had raised from the foundling brought in from the cold.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On her second visit, she brought him books. The teleportation of small objects required concentration and some skill. It had been one of the more difficult lessons.

"Oh _goody_ , I can read for all eternity," he said, lapsing into the slang from Midgard.

When she left, he picked up one leather-bound volume and inspected the title. It was a tome from her private library.

Frigga knew his tastes in literature. She had encouraged his interests in certain directions after all.

He settled down to read a treatise on the magician-shamans of the Vanir.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One her third visit, she brought him grapes from her arbour. Coaxing growth in living things was something he had little patience for.

He still remembered watching her trimming the branches and creepers in her garden as a child. 

_It was summer and the sun was climbing towards its zenith. He had trailed after Frigga and her women as they tended to the queen’s garden, a little bored as he usually was with anything that did not pertain to magic and getting up to mischief with Thor._

_“They grow better this way,” she told him when he asked her about it._

_“But why bother, Mother? You can get the gardeners to do it.”_

_“Sometimes the fruit tastes sweeter when you tend to the vine yourself,” she said, passing the shears back to her lady in waiting. “It could be the satisfaction of a good well done adding to the flavour.”_

She had looked at him fondly at that point.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When she brought him news of his br--Thor and his peacekeeping efforts, he pretended to be bored. Pretended that he did not see the reproachful look in her eyes. Pretended that it had nothing to do with him and that the events on Midgard had been just another incident--

Her fingers twitched and he knew that she was itching to grab his ear the way she used to when he had been a gangling teenager and careless with his tongue. Even in his youth, Loki had the ability to make people cry just by talking to them.

But she could not touch him. No more than he could reach out to touch her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When he grew used to her visits, it was almost as though he had returned to the days when they had sat side by side in her solar, heads bent over a book or a schematic of a spell.

Her visits made the days less onerous. Even if she did mention Thor every now and again.

He still caught her reaching out for him on occasion.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When they told him of her passing, he exploded every stick of furniture in his cell. It was something he had not done since his adolescence, when control had evaded him and emotions had overwhelmed him.

Loki regretted it immediately when he saw that the pages of the books were singed and their spines were cracked from the force of his rage.

Pulling his illusions around himself, he lost himself to grief. When the furnishings proved all too fragile, he tore at his clothes and hair in the approved of fashion. He was unlikely to be allowed to attend her funeral--he did not even have the energy to be angry at Odin.

His mourning would be private, at least.

Sometime after he had exhausted his meagre supply of tears, he tried to conjure up her likeness with his magic.

Her proud carriage, the way she turned her head to look at him, the crinkles at the corner of her eyes when she smiled--

He could not sustain the illusion, breaking off halfway as his vision grew blurry. Apparently he had not reached the last of his reserves yet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

**Author's Note:**

> I watched Thor 2. Felt very sad. And then I felt pissed off because Thor 2!Odin was written as more dickish than Thor!Odin--especially that bit about not allowing Frigga to see her son.
> 
> It’s highly likely that Frigga would have wanted to see her son. Yeah, that one--the one she spent roughly a millennia raising. If she wanted to hug him or slap him or punch him, she should have the option to do so. (Not even going to mention the fridging.)


End file.
